Chapter XIX.—Passages of Scripture by which they attempt to prove that the
Supreme Father was unknown before the coming of Christ.
1. I judge it necessary to add to these details also what, by garbling passages of Scripture,
they try to persuade us concerning their Propator, who was unknown to all before the
coming of Christ. Their object in this is to show that our Lord announced another Father
than the Maker of this universe, whom, as we said before, they impiously declare to have
been the fruit of a defect. For instance, when the prophet Isaiah says, “But Israel hath not
known Me, and My people have not understood Me,”258 they pervert his words to mean
ignorance of the invisible Bythus. And that which is spoken by Hosea, “There is no truth in
them, nor the knowledge of God,”259 they strive to give the same reference. And, “There is
none that understandeth, or that seeketh after God: they have all gone out of the way, they
are together become unprofitable,”260 they maintain to be said concerning ignorance of
Bythus. Also that which is spoken by Moses, “No man shall see God and live,”261 has, as
they would persuade us, the same reference.
2. For they falsely hold, that the Creator was seen by the prophets. But this passage, “No
man shall see God and live,” they would interpret as spoken of His greatness unseen and
unknown by all; and indeed that these words, “No man shall see God,” are spoken concerning
the invisible Father, the Maker of the universe, is evident to us all; but that they are not used
concerning that Bythus whom they conjure into existence, but concerning the Creator (and
He is the invisible God), shall be shown as we proceed. They maintain that Daniel also set
forth the same thing when he begged of the angels explanations of the parables, as being
himself ignorant of them. But the angel, hiding from him the great mystery of Bythus, said
unto him, “Go thy way quickly, Daniel, for these sayings are closed up until those who have
understanding do understand them, and those who are white be made white.”262 Moreover,
they vaunt themselves as being the white and the men of good understanding.
258 Isa. i. 3.
259 Hos. iv. 1.
260 Rom. iii. 11; Ps. xiv. 3.
261 Ex. xxxiii. 20.
262 Dan. xii. 9, 10. The words in the above quotation not occurring in the Hebrew text of the passage, seem
to have been interpolated by these heretics.
Chapter XIX.—Passages of Scripture by which they attempt to prove that the Supreme Father was unknown before the coming of Christ.
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Chapter XIX.—Passages of Scripture by which they attempt to prove that the…